The war on drugs just got a whole lot more warlike. Two hundred U.S. Marines have entered Guatemala, on a mission to chase local operatives of the murderous Zeta drug cartel.

The Marines are now encamped after having deployed to Guatemala earlier this month, and have just “kicked off” their share of Operation Martillo, or Hammer. That operation began earlier in January, and is much larger than just the Marine contingent and involves the Navy, Coast Guard, and federal agents working with the Guatemalans to block drug shipment routes.

It’s a big shift for U.S. forces in the region. For years, the Pentagon has sent troops to Guatemala, but these missions have been pretty limited to exercising “soft power” — training local soldiers, building roads and schools. Operation Martillo is something quite different.

The Great Hemispheric Land-Grab is on. Hegemony on steroids. Uncle Sam has always referred to Central and South America as his ‘backyard’. But the place was too politically messy to physically ‘clean up’ for fear of the American people being afraid of being drawn into a shooting war.

Well, the efforts of the NeoCons have paid off: perpetual war, everywhere. Iraq. Af-Pak. Libya. Deity knows how many more are going on undercover. Far too many people have gotten glazed looks in their eyes when you try to tell them where all this warring is heading, but they’re in a daze from too many wars and too many hard shocks at home to stop it. Walking psychic wounded.

Not exactly what the NeoCons wanted, though. They wanted a generation of disposable ‘Light Brigaders’ to jump patriotically, blindly into the maw of any new war they start, waving flags and singing religious verses as they get cut to pieces by people who don’t care to be invaded. What they’ve gotten is a sullen, shell-shocked nation. And an increasingly angry one.

The NeoCons really do want their New American Century (translation: American Empire) spanning the globe, and this is only the latest phase. But I am afraid that this will really start the final phase of national dissolution.

A long time ago, I read a book by an avowed racist named Thomas Chittum. In that book he stated that America was heading for a another civil war, and needless to say with today’s weapons, there wouldn’t be much left. In that book, Chittum made (I am recalling this from memory) about a hundred predictions of the steps that would lead to that conflict, and the really scary thing is that he predicted back in 1995 that the world economic crash would happen, and that would start the last phase before conflict. 3/4 to 4/5 of those prediction have come to pass. All these wars cost money, and that’s money we don’t have anymore.

When it runs out totally, and things get really tight domestically, the flashpoint will be reached. This is the real reason for the militarization of police, not drugs, and the people who really run things from behind the scenes know just how uncivil civil wars get, as they fomented dozens of them across the planet in the past century. They’re protecting themselves in advance in anticipation of the final collapse. And foolish foreign adventurism like this will precipitate that horror.

Kapt,,,the problem with militarization of the police is that they are still Americans,,and a lot of them are just as mad as we are about all these wars,,,our police may be the storm troopers that attack the bastions of the rich,,when the economy collapses and they don’t get paid anymore either.

Clay, the problem with that is as you mentioned; not that many are of the Oathkeeper persuasion. Sadly, a lot of them are the same kind as the OrdnungPolizei of Nazi Germany, not caring if they’re carting off their life-long Jewish childhood friends and neighbors to certain death.

They’ll only start caring when the Elite no longer can trust them and begin to rely on their higher-paid mercs like Blackwater/Xe/Whatever-the-Hell-They’re-Calling-Themselves-Now. By then the lumpen cops will have done their worst to the population. And the population will be in a mood for retaliation. And that’s when the ‘fun’ really begins.

Einstein’s quip augmentation: As the Monty Phyton would say, there are TWO things that are infinite: the universe and human stupidity…and the War on Drugs. Three, there are THREE things that are infinite: the universe, human stupidity and the War on Drugs…and http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uprjmoSMJ-o

The late, truly great Frank Zappa said something along the same lines:

“Some scientists claim that hydrogen, because it is so plentiful, is the basic building block of the universe. I dispute that. I say there is more stupidity than hydrogen, and that is the basic building block of the universe.”

Wasn’t there something about this (in the wikileaks stuff?) = That the DEA hunting drugs/cartels was becoming a standard “cover” for other alphabet agencies = that specifically aren’t allowed to go into many places, countries, etc.
Seems like there was gonna be a point where they pushed this all public IDK = maybe I missed that bit?

“training local soldiers, building roads and schools”!!!!
Drug war aside, this statement should even irritate the prohibs. With so much talk on the home front about school budget cuts and deteriorating infrastructure why the hell are we building schools and roads in guatemala?!?!

I guess we should get used to more headlines like this one. It looks like those cartels may have bought some Federal Police. Wow I’m shocked.

“They were traveling with a Mexican Navy captain in an embassy sport utility vehicle that had diplomatic license plates, heading toward a military shooting range 35 miles south of the capital when gunmen, some or all of them from the Federal Police, attacked the vehicle, Mexican officials have said. ”

Administrative subpoenas are being used by the DEA and FBI and other agencies in place of court authorized search warrants in order to obtain information through business records involving a company’s business clients. There is no oversight, and no one can refuse to provide the records.

” This latest episode has caused Mexicans to reflect on the quality of the federal police force, which had achieved growing respect but which has been tarnished by recent corruption scandals.

“The thing that really worries me,” said Gabriel Guerra, a political analyst who has worked with the three major parties here, “is that we are seeing the unraveling of what was supposed to be the main achievement in the fight against organized crime, which was the creation of a trustworthy national police.”

(Loud, mocking, incredulous laughter) Potemkin Villages are cheap to construct, but they’re always flimsy and burn down anyway. So, why do they bother?

Because the construction company gets kickbacks from the arsonists, that’s why. The ‘arsonists’ being the cartels, of course.

How many times do we have to be forced to go round-and-round this stupid May pole? Just as predicted, just as what happened with Plan Colombia, Plan Mexi- uh, er, ‘The Merida Initiative’ was supposed to have ‘surgically’ cleaned up the cartels by now, with all the billions spent on it.

But, as usual, the DrugWarriors chose a sledgehammer instead of a scalpel. So now, the cancer of violence spreads from the ruptured, truncheon-beaten tumor resulting from trying to fight the DrugWar ‘like a real war!’. But this is what you get with law enforcement trying to practice medicine.

Is marching in a medical marijuana rally akin to consorting with violent neo-Nazis?

It is according to the federal government, which is systematically
silencing weed war critics with gag orders, travel restrictions and the threat of job firings. The increasing, disturbing trend within the United States is eroding the First Amendment, and giving the American drug war new parallels to communist Russia and China.

Unfortunately, the US is just a human construct, based on a dream. That dream has been shattered by human corruption; the organs charged with being a check and balance to the power of the state, the courts, have been subverted by the PTB for their own uses, and have become pawns, not knights in shining armour in the process. Shame Shame.

It is hard to believe that these leaders don’t have the capacity to understand the long term consequences of allowing the US military into their countries. Is it for the money? if so, it will not last much longer. It does not take a genius to see the failure of the drug war, so what gives here? Is it a sign on to comming open borders and world government? Are they just mullet heads? I am completely confused as to motive here. Any ideas out there to help me out of my confusion?